Are egg yolks really bad for you? Should whole eggs be part of a How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat eating plan? Should you just eat egg whites and throw away the yolks?

These are common questions that I get asked frequently.

Recently, I was spending the weekend with friends and on the saturday morning, John was up first and starting to make breakfast for everyone. He started my cracking open all the eggs and separating all the whites from the yolks, keeping the whites in a bowl and throwing all the yolks in the waste bin. When I asked him why, he said – egg yolks are bad for you – all that fat and cholesterol does you no good at all.

I was horrified – “you’ve just thrown the most nutritious part of the egg away!”

So lets put the record straight here and now…

Egg yolks are rich in antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and trace elements. They are a great source of several B vitamins including thiamin (B1), B6 and B12 along with vitamins A, D, E and K. Amongst a myriad of important nutrients, they contain lutein, choline, panthothenic acid and folates and are high in all essential fatty acids including omega 3. They are rich in essential trace elements including zinc, phosphorus, calcium and iron.

Yes, egg whites contain plenty of protein but our bodies require the amino acids that are in the yolks to digest and make use of this protein source efficiently. Also the egg whites only contain 10% of the nutritional value of a whole egg.

Scientists have proven that the cholesterol in food has a very minimal affect on raising your blood cholesterol levels. This is because the vast majority of the cholesterol in your blood is actually produced by your own liver. In fact, if you don’t include any cholesterol containing foods in your diet your liver will be driven to produce even more cholesterol as it is vital for a healthy body and is used
in different ways by many of your vital organs.

So it is important that you eat foods containing cholesterol to keep yourself healthy. Your body recognises how much cholesterol from food it is getting and reduces the amount of cholesterol it produces in your liver accordingly. Scientists have discovered during their research that, eating whole eggs has a positive effect as it raises your good cholesterol (HDL) more than your bad cholesterol (LDL) and in so doing, it improves the important ratio of cholesterol between the good and bad types.

“But aren’t whole eggs bad for your heart?”

The cholesterol levels in eggs has also been wrongly blamed as a cause of heart disease because of its dietry cholesterol level. Research now shows that the main cause of heart disease is inflammation and not cholesterol in foods. Egg yolks are high in antioxidants including lutein which is an anti-inflammatory.

“Aren’t there more calories in egg yolks than whites”

Well yes there are but the high nutritional value of the yolks by far exceeds any downside of consuming the extra calories. Having such a high nutritrient level within a high protein food like whole eggs also means that you will feel fuller for longer which helps to stop that mid-morning snack feeling.